Wells Fargo Appoints Derek Flowers To New Position To Oversee Compliance

Derek Flowers has been named Wells Fargo‘s head of strategic execution and operations, a new position created by the lender to oversee compliance.

A memo from acting CEO Allen Parker, which was obtained by The Financial Times, revealed that Flowers will head up a new group “focused on executing against our regulatory priorities and, in that connection, strengthening and driving the implementation of certain business and risk-management processes.”

Parker added that Flowers, who has been with Wells Fargo for two decades, “brings strong leadership and regulatory experience to this role.”

Flowers has been chief credit officer since 2013, monitoring the bank’s lending portfolio. In his new position, which will see him report directly to Parker, Flowers will be responsible for remediation efforts and other regulatory issues, as well as updating business and risk-management processes.

Wells Fargo has been in recovery mode since being rocked by a series of scandals in the last two years, most notably a scheme that saw some branch employees opening accounts without customer consent. One estimates said that the total number of fake accounts could be as high as 3.5 million.

As a result of the scandals, the bank hired a new chief auditing officer, Julie Scammahorn, from Citigroup in February. And in 2017, it appointed a new chief risk officer, Amanda Norton, from JPMorgan Chase’s community bank, as well as a new compliance risk officer, Mike Roemer, who ran compliance at Barclays.

The company is also on the hunt for a new CEO after former CEO Tim Sloan left suddenly in March. Just this week it was reported that Wells Fargo had contacted Bridgewater Associates Co-CEO Eileen Murray about the job. The firm reportedly aims to become the only major U.S. banking institution with a female CEO, in hopes that the new optics will be able to improve its image with the public, including banking regulators and politicians.